A Covert Conquest

by Ravenna Tate

  “Grayson, I trust her. Completely. Get used to it.”

  The look of relief on her beautiful face tugged at Barclay’s heart.

  “All right. If you do, so do I. Talk to you in a few minutes.”

  Grayson disconnected the call, and Barclay pulled Rissa into his arms. They held each other, not saying a word, while Barclay waited for the ping to tell him there was an incoming call from all the Weathermen.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Rissa felt like someone had punched her in the gut. Only a few short hours ago, she’d been having sex with Barclay. Now, she realized his friends weren’t sure she could be trusted, all because she happened to work with one of the hackers. She didn’t know Mindy at all outside of work, and told Barclay that, but clearly his mind was on the upcoming call.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said.

  Had he told the others about the text message and calls that Rissa hadn’t returned? And what about Mindy showing up outside the new office that day? Did the other Weathermen know about that, too, and wonder whether Rissa had been feeding Mindy information about the project?

  Because it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that’s what Grayson had meant about the question of trust. She’d heard enough in his request to take the phone off speaker to know that’s what he had asked Barclay. And then later in the call, he must have asked again.

  “Grayson, I trust her. Completely. Get used to it.”

  The relief at hearing Barclay’s answer didn’t erase the fact that at least one of his friends had doubts.

  She ran upstairs to put on jeans and t-shirt, and by the time she returned to his office, the call was starting. He pointed toward the chair next to him, but she didn’t want to be in front of the screen. She only took it because the intense look in his eyes was filled with trust and love, and she didn’t want to look like a brat right now. This was the biggest breakthrough they’d had in seven years, and she was part of it.

  He trusted her, and it was important they present a unified front to the other Weathermen right now. If she hid, they might suspect Grayson’s misgivings were valid after all.

  “Has everyone read all the IMs?” asked Addison.

  They all indicated they had read them. Rissa glanced at the list of attendees, and was relieved to see Harper, Liane, Angela, Julianne, Sela, and Nadine were also in attendance. She wasn’t the only woman here, and it gave her a warm glow to realize she was now part of this elite circle.

  “How do you two want to proceed with this?” asked Emmett.

  “I don’t want Dante working for me,” said Grayson, “but if we tip our hand, we might not find the others.”

  “I agree,” said Barclay. “Is there a way to force them to tell us who the others are? Obviously they know.”

  “What do you suggest?” asked Blaine, his voice filled with sarcasm. “Torture? Threats?”

  “They’re going to know we stole Rob’s laptop as soon as you say anything,” said Ace.

  “From what the IMs indicate,” said Harper, “they already know it was one of you who took it.”

  “Shut down any security clearances they have,” said Addison. “That’s step number one.”

  “If they do that,” said Damien, “Dante and Mindy might suspect they’ve been outed.”

  “What about putting a trace on their online activities?” asked Ace.

  “That’s doable,” said Barclay, “but they’re talking on other machines as well and we can’t try to hack in. They’d know we did it.”

  “And we can’t keep stealing laptops,” said Grayson.

  “If we didn’t have Rob’s,” said Atticus, “we’d be nowhere with this.”

  “You’re not all suggesting we steal their laptops, too,” said Kane. “Are you?”

  “It might come to that,” said Viggo. “What about the databases? Any luck on matching the other hacker names to real names?”

  “Not yet,” said Liane. “Angela, Harper, and I have been concentrating on the five usernames only for now.”

  “Since we now know the real names of two hackers,” said Angela, “we’re going to look for commonalities between those two user names and the other three.”

  “That sounds like a solid plan,” said Atticus. “But in the meantime, does anyone have ideas for forcing Mindy and Dante to reveal the other three names?”

  “We could trick them into telling us who the others are,” said Oliver.

  “How?” asked Dominic. “Do you have a scenario in mind?”

  “I have an idea,” said Blaine. “We use two people as a plant. One at each company. Get to know them. Cozy up to them. Isn’t that exactly what Rob did with three people who used to work at NSSL? That’s the way it sounded from these IMs.”

  “Great idea,” said Kane, “but there’s not enough time.”

  “We’ve already waited seven years,” said Damien. “What’s a few more months?”

  “You think you could get them each to trust strangers in a few months?” asked Harper. “They’ve known Rob for years now, and it’s clear from these IMs these two still don’t trust him.”

  “Then we need people they’ll trust quickly,” said Ace. “People like the women seven of us have taken into our lives.”

  Rissa smiled at the love she heard in Ace’s voice. She could picture him smiling at Harper right now. She flashed Barclay a grateful look, and he winked at her. She grabbed his hand and squeezed it, realizing that Ace had said seven. Seven of them had taken women into their lives, not only six. Had Barclay said something to the others while she’d been upstairs changing?

  “You want to find someone to seduce them?” asked Julianne.

  “Yes,” said Kane. “Why not? Seduce them and trick them into giving up the rest of the names.”

  “Isn’t that a bit cruel?” asked Sela.

  “On whose part?” asked Damien. “Not Dante’s or Mindy’s, surely.”

  “No, of course not. I meant on the part of the plants.”

  “Not if they know up front what their objective is,” said Nadine. “You’re all talking about using people who do this for money, right? Operatives, in other words.”

  “Viggo and Blaine know people like that,” said Addison. “Can you two think of anyone you could use for an operation like this?”

  Rissa remembered Barclay telling her it was associates of Viggo’s who had stolen the laptop.

  “Oh yeah,” said Blaine, his voice confident. “I can think of several right off the bat.”

  “Leave it to me and Blaine,” said Viggo. “We’ll put our heads together right now and have names to the rest of you by morning.”

  “Are we all in agreement on this plan, then?” asked Kane.

  “I don’t see what other choice we have,” said Grayson.

  “What about the info Rob supposedly has on each of us?” asked Ace. “Have you and Rissa found that yet?”

  “No, but we have more data to go over still.”

  “What about security within your company and Grayson’s?” asked Oliver.

  “We all have security tightened up,” said Emmett. “But it never hurts to take another look.”

  “Not tight enough if this could happen,” said Addison.

  “We’ve never monitored all the IMs or emails of analysts,” said Barclay. “We will from this point on.”

  “Same here,” said Grayson. “We monitor them intermittently only for all employees, but from this moment on, they all will be watched.”

  The men all agreed to monitor everything each of their employees did online from now on. They also agreed it was possible that the other hackers, or associates of theirs, could be working for any of them.

  “Dominic, you were right,” said Ace. “This was an inside job.”

  “Doesn’t give me much comfort, though, to know that.”

  Once the call ended, Barclay pulled her into his lap and held her. Rissa now understood he’d made it perfectly clear during the call that he trusted her and
she was part of them, but she asked anyway. “Did you say something to the group while I was upstairs?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Ace said ‘seven’. Seven of you had taken women into your lives, not six.”

  He grinned, and she had to blink back fresh tears.

  “Yes, I did. I hope that was okay.”

  “It was perfect. Thank you. Barclay, will this plan work?”

  “It has to. Unless you and I find the other real names on Rob’s laptop.”

  “Do you want get back to work instead of returning to bed?”

  “Would you mind? For a few hours, at least?”

  “Not at all.”

  ****

  It took another two weeks to get through everything on Rob’s laptop, and they never found the real names of the other three hackers, but they did find five real names among the thirteen who had been part of the conversation snatched off the satellite. They also finally found the information Ace had asked about. It was in a folder labeled “Garden Supplies”.

  “Dirt,” said Barclay, shaking his head. “He has dirt on each of us. Get it?”

  “So clever.” Rissa read the information. “None of this is terribly damaging, is it? It’s mostly stuff he gleaned from the tabloids online, although he also seems to have dug into your backgrounds quite a bit.”

  “I agree. It’s not anything someone else couldn’t have found on their own without top notch investigative skills and a lot of persistence.”

  “What do you think he was saving it for? Blackmail?”

  “Probably.”

  When Barclay called Liane and asked if she and the others had found any information on those usernames yet, they had not, so Liane was more than happy to add the five real names to the databases. She assured Barclay they’d look for connections among all eighteen names now, not only the five hackers. They had all agreed that looking for clues to how the eighteen were connected might lead them to the other three hacker names.

  Rissa felt self-conscious returning to work. It had been five weeks, and she could only imagine the rumors that were flying around the building by now. Viggo and Blaine were still searching for the perfect plants, having narrowed down their search to three women and four men.

  Barclay had asked Rissa if she wanted to know who the plant was when they chose him for Mindy, and she said she wasn’t sure if she should know. She was afraid if she knew, she might accidently tip her hand in front of Mindy or one of Mindy’s close friends.

  “You’re not returning to your analyst position. I’m keeping you in the office up here.”

  “But what if she asks me more questions? What am I supposed to tell her?”

  “Tell her you’re busy.”

  “You make it sound easy.”

  “It is, especially now. I’ve given you a new title. You’re now my Special Projects Administrator, and everyone will soon know you have the same security clearance I do. That will keep a lot of them from bothering you.”

  “Won’t that only make Mindy more persistent?”

  “Not unless she’s stupid.”

  “Have you intercepted any more IMs or emails between her and Dante?”

  “Not a one. That was a slip-up on their part that I’m guessing they don’t often make.”

  Mindy hadn’t called or texted again, but Rissa didn’t want to be the person to tip their hand accidentally.

  Everything was in motion, and she knew there was nothing to do at this point except complete the work Barclay sent her way, and wait for their plan to succeed or fail. This had to be very frustrating for all of them, and she said so to Barclay one afternoon when they were in his office, outlining a new project that had nothing to do with hackers.

  “It is, but remember we’ve been doing this for seven years. We’re closer than we’ve ever been, so as hard as it is to wait, I’m trying to keep the big picture in mind.”

  He gave her a sideways glance filled with uncertainty, and this time she faced him full on. “You’ve been doing that for three days now.”

  “What?”

  She laughed. “You’re a terrible liar, too. What’s with the looks lately? They’re full of trepidation, like you’re afraid to tell me something…”

  Her voice trailed off as the events before that fateful phone call between all of them came back to her. Grayson had asked Barclay if he trusted her, and he had insisted he did, but what if she’d been wrong? What if now, with the revelation that Mindy was one of the hackers, doubt had once more crept in?

  “What happened?” he asked. “What changed just now?”

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “What?”

  “You’re having second thoughts. That’s why you’ve been looking at me like that.”

  He shook his head. “No. Not true.”

  “Why then? Don’t deny you’re doing it. I can see the truth all over your face.”

  “You’re wrong, love.”

  “Then what is going on?”

  A look of resignation crossed his face, and he opened a drawer in his desk. Her heart pounded as he pulled something out, but palmed it so she couldn’t see it. “I didn’t want to do this here.”

  She stood. “Didn’t want to do what? Am I being fired?”

  He gave her a look of incredulity. “What the hell are you talking about? Of course not.”

  “Then what did you just take out of your desk?”

  “Sit back down and I’ll show you.”

  “No. I’ll stand, thank you.” She blinked back tears. Whatever it was, she’d face it head on and without showing him fear or anger.

  “Rissa, you’re not in trouble. I do trust you. With my life.”

  She said nothing. None of this made sense to her. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of her rational mind, she knew she was acting paranoid, but she couldn’t seem to stop it.

  “When I said I didn’t want to do this here, I meant I had a more romantic setting in mind.” He sauntered toward her, like a big cat stalking prey. She was confused now, and her gaze kept cutting to his hand, but whatever was in it was still hidden.

  “But since you’ve forced my hand, we’ll do it now.”

  He walked past her and locked the door, which further confounded her. He never did that. When he reached her again, he got down on one knee in front of her and she was so shocked she plopped down in the chair.

  “That’s better.” He held out his hand, and Rissa gasped at the small velvet box in his palm.

  “What…”

  He opened the box, and she put her hands to her chest. The ring was a large diamond, surrounded by tiny sapphires.

  “They remind me of your stunning eyes, silly girl. You’re not being fired. You’re being proposed to. I’m asking you to marry me.”

  “Really?”

  Barclay laughed nervously, and her heart skipped a few beats at the look of apprehension on his face. “Yes, really. Is that a ‘yes’?”

  “Oh my God. Of course it’s a ‘yes’. Yes, I will marry you.”

  “Thank God.” He slipped the ring on her finger, and she wasn’t surprised to find it fit perfectly. Then he stood and hugged her, twirling her around until she laughed with him. When he placed her on her feet, he cupped her face. “You are the most amazing, beautiful, fun woman I’ve ever known, and I can’t imagine my life without you. I love you so much, Rissa.”

  “I love you, too, Barclay. I never thought I’d feel this again, but I can’t imagine my life without you either.”

  He pulled her close and held her tightly. “Then I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

  “You are so getting laid tonight.”

  He kissed her again, and Rissa thought her heart would burst from joy. She never thought any man could fill her body, heart, and soul again, but she’d been wrong. Barclay was the man who had given her hope, and now she would give him love. Every single day for the rest of her life, she would make sure he knew how very, very much she loved him.

  The End
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